Psalm 22 revisited

Just over a year ago, I was quite impressed with Psalm 22. How great it is that Scripture shows us that we can present our raw emotions to God. Faith does not mean always wearing a happy face.

Then I looked at it again tonight and noticed something new. Here is how it begins:

For the director of music. To the tune of "The Doe of the Morning." A psalm of David.
1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from saving me,
so far from my cries of anguish?
2 My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer,
by night, but I find no rest.
3 Yet you are enthroned as the Holy One;
you are the one Israel praises.

What caught my eye was the introduction, "For the director of music. To the tune of 'The Doe of the Morning.' " This is not just a spontaneous cry of pain from a moment David couldn't handle it anymore. This was a carefully rehearsed liturgical event. He picked out the tune the praise band would play as he poured out his heart to God. Maybe they needed to rehearse it several weeks before the performance.

How often in our worship do we express we have pain in our lives, but trust God is with us in it? Why do we think worship always has to be positive? It's pretty clear David wouldn't agree with that idea.

My earlier post on Psalm 22

God's love, the glory and the pain

God loves us and has a wonderful plan for our lives.

That is the simple summary of the Gospel many of us have heard, Law 1 of the Four Spiritual Laws used for many years now by Campus Crusade.

Does this mean God just wants to bless us by giving us all we want? No.
The "wonderful plan" probably involves difficulties, hardships and trials. Why? Because the blessing God wants most to give us in his unfathomable love for us, is that we be like Christ. Giving us our selfish desires won't make us happy, it will make us bored, or whining for something else.

I was reminded of this principle by a couple of things lately. First, an excellent tweet by Paul David Tripp: "God will not forsake his sovereign plan of grace in order to deliver to you the pleasure and comfort-oriented life that you've dreamed of."

Second, I remembered the words of the song "Blessings" by Laura Story. She summarizes what we pray for, comfort, health, prosperity, then says "You love us far too much to be content with lesser things."

It can be painful to be loved by God, who accepts us right where we are but does not want to leave us there. The road to maturity, to the full glory of who he wants us to be often does lead through trials and sufferings, but let us believe that these are indeed the true blessings.

What I believe

I believe God loves me, he is with me, and I need him to be with me.
I believe God can make more of me than I can make of myself.
I believe I don't have to prove I'm right. If I am right, God will defend me.
If I'm wrong, I can admit it and ask God for help.

For the curious, this is not a complete list of what I believe, but some key things.

Promises and assumptions

God's promises are good, they bring us life and hope.

But they can be badly interpreted to yield dangerous assumptions. We can assume that God's promises mean we'll almost always be successful and most things will go well. Then when they don't, we lose faith or we panic.

Paul says "For no matter how many promises God has made, they are 'Yes' in Christ." Jesus is the fulfillment of the promises. Jesus, aka Immanuel, "God with us." The most basic promise is not that we'll have pleasant circumstances, but that God will be with us in our circumstances.

So let us trust the promises, not what we assume the promises ought to mean.

Marriage and the Covenant

Several theologians and writers have written about marriage as a covenant. The latest one I've read is Tim Keller.

The marriage as covenant idea says marriage is to be viewed as a covenant between spouses, "a sacrificial commitment to the good of the other." Marriage is not a commercial contract, where you are willing to give something to get what you want, but the emphasis is on getting what you want, and you are willing to consider getting what you want from another vendor if they offer better quality or a better price.

This idea of marriage as a covenant shed a new light on Jeremiah's promise of the New Covenant. There's an odd phrase at the end of verse 32, "because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them.". Jeremiah 31:32

Jeremiah says God is the husband who resolves to stay committed and to make the covenant relationship work. If ever anyone could have said "You're not meeting my needs," or "We've grown apart," that would be God. But he doesn't start all over again with a new people, he keeps the ones he's chosen.

May God inspire us to faithfulness in our covenant relationships.

Thank you God

Thank you God. You speak truth, not in an archaic or dead sacred language that I have to memorize how it is pronounced, but in words I can understand. May those who do not understand come to understand.

Who am I?

In human terms, incomplete, puzzled, not fully understood. Others don't understand me. But a simplistic "to my own self be true" view is not the answer. The world doesn't understand me, but I understand myself all too well. I make too many excuses why I don't live up to my potential.

But in God's terms, I am loved, a valuable soul in process. He has committed himself to bring out my greatness. This maturing and forming process is a combination of hearing the inner cries of my heart, and also encouraging me to listen.

And so are you, my reader, a valuable soul in process. I wish you to understand the challenge and the depth of God's love for you.